Losing Life, But Left Alone
by SpaceMutie
Summary: What was he doing? Was he letting go of all that meant anything? Was he losing his mind to space? Too bad a cetain Vulcan had something to say about that. K/S
1. Of My Weaknesses

For thousands of years, humans have marveled at the wonders of space. The deep, pitch black nothingness, dotted with the occasional glowing spherical masses of stars. Many a time, astronomers and poets alike have attempted to explain the almost god-like feel of this nothing that surrounded us. But, no one could truly explain the stark, almost empty feeling of fascination until they experienced it themselves.

Not even James T. Kirk, the blond-haired, spunky, self- assured hero complex of a person, understood how to describe it. But, if he had to compare it to something or someone more likely, his tall, skinny, dark-haired first officer to his right would be the closest. For in fact, even speaking to the stoic, sharp- as-a-tack Vulcan was almost unbearably infuriating.

"Coming in to Earth orbit, two seconds and counting. Mr. Sulu, prepare the forward thrusters for interceptive landing." The phrase almost robotically spoken, Kirk continued to gaze out into the ever-growing swirls of blue and green, almost marbled in comparison to its dark protector of space.

"Captain… Captain…" An echo of sound barely filtered in his ears, almost ghostly in the swirling vortexes that were his thoughts. Why was he so unfocused? A whining voice in the back of his head warned that losing focus was unacceptable, that he was a captain of a Galactic Federation flagship, and he should probably pay attention…

"Captain, are you well?" Blatantly falling from his thought-induced reverie, Jim turned swiftly to encounter stark, black eyes watching cautiously, slanted eyebrows furrowed in worry and concern. Waving him off wordlessly, he stood, silently regretting the half a dozen meetings that he would probably be required to attend. Walking swiftly to the launch pad, he caught a silver reflection of himself in the machinery of the transporter. He looked old and weary, mouth permanently pressed into a frown, his hair sticking up in all different directions.

"Hah, I look like shit. No wonder Spock was worried about me." A dark, sardonic chuckle escaped him as his long-exhausted body began to inwardly collapse. It had been three months, _three fucking months, _since he had been back home. Every single time he managed to pull an impossible feat of saving everyone, another "life or death crisis" manifested itself in front of his eyes. Even shore leave was a hassle, because it seemed work was never too far away to find him. His entire body felt heavy from lack of sleep.

"Count off in three…two…one…energize." Before he could protest, another body passed into the translucence of the pad. In the split second of consciousness that was left in him, a dark pair of chocolate-brown pupils gazed at him, unknown pools of warmth and life that could never be denied. And, as the bone-weary thoughts escaped him, he felt a slight sense of guilt. Spock, and only Spock, was his only tether to life, and he was slowly letting go of the only lifeline he had. To put it simply, he was a fool.


	2. Ignorance isn't always Bliss

Spock knew was something was wrong with his captain. He could feel it in every fiber of his being, and it troubled him deeply. Sitting at his post, his heart thrumming in his ears, mind ferociously alert, he was absolutely sure of it. _Now, just what is going on? _

"Spock, is something wrong?" Hearing the voice he wished to hear most, he swiveled in his chair to meet the eyes of Jim himself, blue pools that looked almost dank and stagnant, and he nodded a robotic agreement. Catching a hint of weariness, his eyebrow arched. Throughout the past 3 weeks, something had been off, and the air had felt almost heavy and weighted with tensions unidentifiable. He had brushed it aside first, for he was most certainly _not_ the emotional and sociological crewman, nor was he the connoisseur of solutions to those problems because, let's just face it, Vulcans are not the most socially-inclined species to exist.

But, if this was getting bad enough to affect the Captain's welfare, it was now much more than just a social slipup. He knew from various experiences that James T. Kirk was far and beyond the general human standard, and that very few things could, so to speak, "get under his skin", and that he was far and away the most intelligent humans that Spock had had the pleasure of meeting. So, knowing he was experiencing a problem that he didn't quite comprehend threw him for a loop.

Sliding imperceptibly lower in his chair, he attacked the current "unsolvable" mathematical equation with a deadly dose and precision and efficiency, very willing indeed to expend his inward frustrations to scientific pursuits. Just the mere thought of getting angry, ironically, made him even more frustrated.

"Oh, Captain, what are you doing to me...?" He felt, essentially, like he was going mad with worry, and Jim wasn't piping up. A small part of him, the Vulcan part, reminded him that, _"What are you so consumed about? If he had a problem that he specifically needed you for, he would have asked."_ Yes, that would be most logical, to leave his Captain alone until the whole affair to blow over.

"Spock." Receiving, in his mind, a nearly Earth-shattering tap that sent a collective, building swirl of emotions spiraling through his nerve endings like a twister, his muscles stiffened, tensing like a cat against the not-quite-painful-but-most-certainly-not-pleasing intrusion. "Alpha Shift has ended. Would you care to join me for chess?"

Heart stuttering at an indecent rhythm, even for a human, Spock clamored to his feet, his twitching stance going unnoticed by anyone, bystander or not. Nodding in stoic agreement, he swiveled on his heels to follow the blond-headed, twitching human striding in front of him, secretly dreading every second he had to watch him suffer.

Oh yes, something was very wrong with the Captain. But, if he had known as to what consequence this would have, he would have stopped it earlier.


	3. An Acknowledgement Of Sorts

'_Captain!' _ He nearly cried out, watching in ever-slow eidetic memory as soft, black-clad legs buckled from exhaustion, sending a head full of blonde hair spiraling to the floor. Moving perhaps faster than any other living being on ship, he swiveled around the array of technical equipment and wiring, nearly losing his traction as the waxed floor curled and twisted underfoot. None of this affected his course, for the Captain, and he alone, could be more important and valuable than his own life and safety.

It was rather illogical, this feeling of protection and _loyalty_, God forbid. If he had felt anything in feasible distance to this sort of emotional strength, Spock would have feared he had lost his small, private touch of sanity, but _now_, now it was different. He knew not of cause or reason, but it was the truth, frightening and bothersome as it was: he cared for the man, perhaps more than anyone could ever comprehend...And it scared him, developing slowly until it almost became a disease, a mental sickness that one could neither avoid nor escape. Pathetic.

Catching his fallen comrade, that all-too-familiar swirling of emotions rushed to his head, but he promptly ignored it. His thoughts were completely and utterly irrelevant, and that was the only way it should ever be, for, without a leader, his life on this ship was insignificant, useless, unnecessary. Gone.

The transporter beam swallowed them both in kaleidoscopic rays of energy, dissolving into seemingly momentary seconds of unconsciousness. Spock let that brief sense of darkness quell his already racing thought process, and momentarily gave in to his careening, vertigo-like sense of exhaustion that persisted to chase him like a plague. '_Captain, you are too much trouble for your own worth.'_ And, at last, he lost himself completely.

"Mm..." Jim Kirk rolled over in exhaustion, the thin tether of his thoughts lost to whatever soft, airy surface that he rested on. It rocked and bounced occasionally, in a gentle, lethargic rhythm that dulled the already-illusive warning bells in his head. Voices echoed in and out, a nonsensical jabbering that insisted on intruding his sleep-laden mind.

"Huh...? What's goin' on?" Only a slight intake of breath answered him, sharp and immediate. More confused than he should have been, his groggy eyes fluttered open to reveal something incredibly astonishing: his own Vulcan (well, mostly Vulcan) First Officer carrying him down an annoyingly Starfleet-symbolized gray hallway. "Spock..." Still unfocused, the gravity of the situation came crashing down on him both metaphorically and literally.

"O-oh my god, what's going on?" Sitting up by leaning against his forearms, Jim looked up at him, eyes a prevailing mix of embarrassment, confusion, and nervousness, mixing in rapid succession. And those mysteriously-comforting eyes just stared back, enigmatic and indescribably simple. He had been saved by Spock. Again.

On cue, a dark eyebrow arched, in sarcasm (or perhaps in relief. Kirk could never be sure) and he could have sworn that those thin lips of his contorted into some semblance of a grin, one that he could neither place nor understand. "S-spock, what happened to me? Can you put me down, now?"

Now, keep in mind, his first officer was the aficionado, per say, of following orders. If there was ever something to be down, Spock was the man to do it, and do it right then, without any default or hesitation. Even if it went against his own unspoken, reserved ideals, he never voiced any other thought other than acknowledgement. Never ever.

So, even the word "shocked" couldn't apply to how he had felt when Spock answered. Not a single word.

"No, I can't do that. I apologize."

What the hell was going on?


	4. Determination under Siege

"Mr. Smith, though I respect your prowess as a medical officer, I'm afraid you quite off-mark in your medically-based assumptions of my Captain."

This was an interesting predicament, to say the least. After all, it wasn't common to get Spock riled up over anything, especially over another person, who, in his own interests, was _completely _fine, and that it was just a fainting spell, and nothing more. It was astonishing, to say the least, to watch his stoic First Officer show anything, emotionally speaking, besides agreement and indifference.

"Spock, honestly, I'm completely fine. It was just exhaustion mixed with stress, and that's nothing new or exciting. Just... let him do his job." Said Vulcan turned, away from his largely-escalating domestic with the fairly young dark-skinned Doctor, and raised an eyebrow, a gesture that asked far too many questions to be answered in the half-a-second it took. Something was troubling him obviously, and, as to the cause, Jim had no answer.

_Are you sure? _He almost swore that he could feel that voice in his head, soft and subtly, deceptively calming, marred with those worried undertones, as fleeting as they were important. _So he __**is **__worried about me. Well, I guess that answers one of my questions. _Shifting in the obscenely-sanitized clinic bed, he slowly scrambled to his feet, back straight and upright out of habit.

"Yes, I'm sure," he sighed, long, callused fingers acting out a splendid rhythm across his black-clad thighs. Reassurance resonated firmly, but he knew that Spock could read him far more efficiently than any façade could mask. It infuriated him, certainly, but it was a mutual trust, and God, did he need that more than anything. "Go ahead, Mr. Spock."

Black-lashed eyes blinked in acknowledgement, a gesture perhaps so vague and obscure that, if you weren't looking for it, you might have never taken it as anything but a bodily function. He knew, though, and it intrigued him at how much he could actually from the one mysterious man he so despised only 7 months ago.

Spock then walked away; not at all a sign of abhorrence, but a show of respect, for orders from the Captain were his first priority, and Kirk valued that. Spock was a good man, despite his infuriating blank slate expressions and those few certain quirks that made anyone that wasn't a genius or **very** intuitive want to go mad. Whichever one Kirk was, he couldn't determine, but it wasn't one thought that he cared to puzzle out as he watched him brush past the too-bemused-for-his-own-good Dr. Smith and disappear.

The room fell into a lack-luster, pseudo-silence, for the quiet whirring of the machinery and the nervous shuffling of the Doctor were but a footnote in the torrential winds of his thought processes, as unnecessary as they were irrelevant. Kirk was lost in contemplation, once again attempting to determine what the hell he was going to do with Spock, after he managed to escape this correct, clinical prison he was currently stationed in, of course.

_Maybe I should've let him stay with me, even though he would have probably argued with every little piece of information that was shoved in his face. _With that, he chuckled softly, most certainly amused by the thought of Spock, **Spock, **fretting over his well-being like a ruffled house wife. _Next thing you know, he'll be wearing an apron and asking if my day at work was alright. How ridiculous._

His brow furrowed slightly, because there were too many things he wouldn't be able to inquire about sitting in this hospital bed, staring at the ceiling. The Doctor had vacated the premises long ago, assured that he wouldn't do anything stupid or life-threatening that required constant surveillance and vigilance on his part. _He's probably right. I'm couldn't do anything, well, anything that could physically damage me. _

A tempting thought flashed before cerulean-blue eyes, taking form of a stern, yet slightly relieved half-Vulcan. It wasn't as if he couldn't manage walking, despite what Spock had implied at the introduction to this madness. _You could go see him, so do it. Come on, just do it. Go on. _That niggling voice in his head, one that constantly plagued him with bad ideas, actually had an idea that appealed to him for once. Maybe he **was **crazy, after all. It wouldn't surprise him in the slightest.

Sighing gently to himself, he swung his legs up and off the bed, a slight smile on his face.

"Hey, Spock," he spoke aloud, voice ringing in the impenetrable silence, "what are you doing to yourself? Can't you tell me?" Of course, silence can never answer back.


	5. A New Discovery

_Possessive._ Those cold eyes, darkest and cruelest of his kind, sharp and slighting as they slashed through his mental passages, ripping, tearing, _decimating_ all that prevented, all that barred its infallible grasp. _What a greedy, needy thing. Death, death, death to the half-breed child~ Your mother must be so proud! _He sneered, his claw-like hands brandishing that knife, tearing his near-translucent skin, blood spurting unevenly across his palm, enhancing that scorching, blinding pain across his eyes.

_Such a brave little tyrant... I've finally someone to play with! _Bone ripped through flesh, dripping with the sweet green succulence of his lifelines, and nothing could deter that horrid, dying scream that was ripped from his vocal cords, as they bled through his lungs. Emerald splashed against his calves, and his eyes glazed over at his heart, throbbing in an excruciating dance. _Aren't you happy? Your needs are all gone, all gone._

_**N-no... Stop it. STOP IT!**_Blood flooded his mouth, his throat, drowning his words in liquid copper. He was dying...** Captain, I'm so... sorry...**

"Spock?" A tiny whisper echoed through the hall, becoming more miniscule in its vibrations that sounded. The blonde shivered, his thin clinical uniform aiding in his increasingly chilled torso, and the air was so cold he swore he could see the warm puffs of air escaping his lips. _God, are you trying to freeze me to death?_

Urgency and impatience radiated off his body, prevalent in the nervously clenched digits of his fingers, currently stabbing into his skin with needle-like urgency. _Where is he? Isn't this his designated room? _Shifting anxiously from foot to foot, looking very much like the child his delusional mother still swore he still was, he quietly knocked on the door, even while knowing that if Spock **were **there, he would have answered before now.

"Oh, fuck it." He was out of patience. Whispering the override code fervently into the speaker, the door come loose with a hiss, mimicking those old compression doors in 21st century horror movies. His bare feet slithered across the floor, his steps a muffled echo on the Starfleet mandatory-styled gray flooring, which was as clinical and spotless as the Medical prison he had just escaped from. And, if anyone knew anything, it was that James Kirk had no preference for the pristine and perfected.

He smirked knowingly against the silence, for this was definitely the room of a Vulcan, and there was only one Vulcan in Starfleet thus far. The air in the cabin was stifling, to say the least, and absolutely no personal items adorned the walls or tables, none whatsoever.

"Spock, are you here?" His query once again being met in silence, this was when he began to panic. _Is he alright or what? He couldn't be still asleep, because isn't he a light sleeper?_ Heartbeat accelerating in his chest, legs shaking and knocking together, he stumbled across the room, tripping over chairs and whatever else that decided that it needed to stand in his way _exactly at the time he didn't need it to. _The loud breathing wasn't necessary, eith-

_Wait... What breathing?_

"Spock, where are you? Are you hurt?" A whine answered him, _finally, _a needy, pained gasp of air, as if ripped from his lungs. It was painful on his eardrums, so unnatural and unsettling to hear it from someone who seemed so infallible and stoic on the surface.

Breathing now at a crescendo, Kirk came upon his First Officer, curled into a shaking, sob-racked ball of black under-uniform and pale, green-veined skin. Long scratches pulsed adamantly from across his shoulder blades to his chest, revealing sweat-slicked, heaving skin underneath.

_What the hell...? _


	6. Security In One's Cmpany

"I apologize that you had to observe me in this state of disarray. I had no inkling that you would visit me at such a late hour..." Pale, blood-stained buried in the palms of his hands, still shaking slightly from shock. Spock looked pitiful, a little frightened child alone in the dark that looked just as weak and lost as Jim felt. Empathy and understanding couldn't begin to describe the emotions that Jim tried to wish away, to abandon as quickly as they arrived. 'That's it. This has gone on long enough.'

"Spock," he began, unsure of what to even _mention, "_I'm tired. I've been wearing thin for a long, long, _long _time, and I just don't even want to try anymore. And that's the problem... Everyone expects me to be absolutely sure and certain about everything, to the point where it makes me want to retch every time I walk into a boardroom. I just..." He curled inward, symmetrical to his partner, but as dissimilar in every other possible variable. Now, at this very second, nothing else mattered but the shallow, listless breath of the half-Vulcan next to him.

"You want to let go of everything..." Dark eyes grazed over him somberly, taking in all and nothing less. It wasn't a question, nor was it a guess, for as much as they argued and bickered, for as much passionate rivalry and clashing interests that rose to the surface, there was a strong, passionate understanding in the quiescence they shared.

Blue eyes met with near-black, no longer the dank, desperate azure that they had been, but not truly clear either. "I'm worried about you also. You told me those were your usual dreams... I've had nightmares as soon as I was old enough to remember them, but, they were never that vicious. It bothers me that you've been having them for so long, and you still couldn't tell me." The unspoken words were as clear as the announced: _Don't you trust me?_

Shame and guilt coated every inch of him now, making his insides twist into unforgiving knots. "I...did not wish to alarm you, Captain, because you must have some other troubling matter, and my personal well-being can wait. I apologize for my thoughtlessness." His head bowed low, unwilling for their eyes to meet as he picked at the bandages subconsciously. Jim could feel his heart thump erratically in his chest, for this wasn't something one man could ever truly expect and prepare for.

"You don't have to. It's alright." Fair hair leaned across awkwardly, but definitely not unwelcome. Smoothing down the ripped gauze lethargically, his breathing sharp at the contact of warm skin, immediately softening, he closed his eyes.

"Can I sleep on it?" A soft smile played on his lips, lips painted with the slightest green hue, but not the least bit unattractive. It was astonishing, to say the least, such a blatant show of emotion, but right then, in the heat of things, it felt inexplicably right. Spock felt free and, for once, safe. His heart thumped in his side at a frightfully fast pace.

A soft voiced nod. "Okay, let's do that." And as he leaned back, curling inward, he couldn't help but wonder...'What's going to happen next.


	7. What Is Yours Is Mine

"I'm broken. I have been, for quite some time actually." San Francisco buildings rose out of the thick fog as the sun rose, illuminating soft blonde locks as they curled, matted from sleep. Spock couldn't muster nearly enough mental strength to look at his comrade, focusing instead on the newly formed bruises and cuts from last night's terrors. "Most of the Vulcan population is now decimated. How couldn't I be so?"

Shaky breaths answered the pause, from Jim or himself he did not know, but reassuringly ominous all the same. "The mental links between nearly all of our citizens, families, brothers, sisters, Thy'la... all became severed in one moment of mass hysteria and fear." _My mother. _But that road was known well, and Jim could still, in the near frequent moments of depression, feel those angry fingers press into his throat with a vengeance.

The wince of the blonde was painfully obvious, so much so that Spock's fingers itched to entwine with those currently curled into the maroon bedspread. " I... did not wish to burden you with such emotion, as you were suffering from your means, so I kept them hidden from you, and you especially. I apologize for my thoughtlessness."

The truth of his words echoed in his eyes, painfully lonely and too sorrowful for any human to bear. And that was the fact of the matter, that he could _never _understand what it was like to lose every one of those familiar people in less than an instant, to feel the grief of everyone that lived, grief of those lives being destroyed for nothing other than a display of power. It _frustrated _him, _sickened _him, rising with the guilt and the undying curiousity to understand his First Officer.

"You don't have to apologize. Everything that I did," he stops, trying to find his breath before continuing, "It was all because of my own problems, Spock. It wasn't anything that you could have prevented." His eyes dropped down, and his posture stooped, sinking lower and lower to his chest until he was curled up in fetal position, jamming his knees against his chin. "I'm broken, too."

The Vulcan watched on, feeling the loneliness and anxiety escape into the room, oozing and evaporating from the skin of the one whom he held dear, and it was so empty. Empty just like the rooms he remembered from home, the ones his mother insisted on decorating, to his father's consternation. The mere thought of her made him ill, but the presence of Jim was making it harder and harder to focus on anything related to himself. Instead of voicing this, like a Vulcan should, he instead took a gentle grip on the Captain's shirt.

James T. Kirk nearly bolted at the feeling, the heady rush of conflicting emotions that gripped to his shoulder. It was sadness and loss and love and gratitude compiled into a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas, far too much for a normal human to keep, and it was making him shake with the burden. It called back memories of Old Spock, with the experiences that he would never receive, but so much warmer and teeming with familiarity. There was so much love there, without a doubt for him; enough to make even the weaknesses of him burn away.

Jim glanced up, meeting his First Officer's eyes for a fraction of a second, and the eye contact made the meeting of their lips that much sweeter.

Spock curled against the other body, making them touch as much as they could before they both lacked oxygen and pulled away, still maintaining the closeness and the stimulus that he now knew the Captain craved more than anything.

"Spock?"

"Yes?"

"Don't call me Captain."

He nods compliantly, ever the man to follow orders. "Yes, Jim."


	8. The One Where Bones Does All The Work

It was a fairly unusual thing to see Leonard McCoy trying to purposely wedge himself into a packed space, because _goddamnit Jim, he's a doctor, not a can of sardines! _The mere prospect of trying to stand in a packed building for a time longer than three seconds was vomit-inducing, but fuck that.

After all, it's not every day you're invited to your crazy, flamboyant, idiotically _charming _egoist friend's wedding.

"'Bout time, too," he muttered to himself, pressed between an increasingly twitchy (blonde?) Vulcan trying to snipe him with his eyes and a God-Knows-What oozing slime onto his left sleeve. Ugh, just what he needed, to show up with toxic sludge on his shirt. He made the horrifying mistake of trying to wipe it off; resulting in a burning sensation across his fingers that probably meant his skin cells were melting off. Lovely.

The lift pulled up quickly and easily to the top floor, letting the slimy whatsit slither off to its destination after a few random stops on the way through, leaving the good Doctor and his irate-but-still-Vulcan buddy in the shaft, trying to stand as far away from Bones as possible without shoving himself out of the airlock. The definitely blonde eyebrows furrowed in a slight dip, with sharp canines chewing on a lower lip with a ferocity that had Leonard wondering if he was actually vegetarian after all, because this one looked poised to pounce on some unsuspecting civilian.

"Typical pointy-eared bastards." The blonde twitched in hearing, leaning over to gaze at him with the feeling of a lion looking at a mouse: the complete disinterest and ferocity of a feline. It was damn frustrating actually, because they already had a superiority streak the size of Alpha Centauri, as he'd learned the hard way.

"I don't believe that insulting a member of the Vulcan Council is a sound method of venting claustrophobia, Doctor McCoy." And the smug look on his face was _killing him._

"I don't know, kid. I feel pretty great right now." And what luck, thee door opened to the hall, and he slipped out into the Banquet Hall. Well, into whatever this was. It looked like Georgia's version of a wedding, with the usual drunk patrons in the back corner and about 200 species clamoring and yelling around each other. It was a gauntlet to wander through, and as soon as he escaped the massacre, a hand tugged him into a dark room by the sleeve.

"Bones, man you're late!" The lights flicked on as he was blind-sided by a flying lump of blonde weight, ripping his hands away from attack position to reveal a sweating, jittery James Kirk, tie undone and bouncing on the backs of his heels, wrinkling the matte-black suit. To put it simply, Jim looked green enough to make a Vulcan jealous.

"And you look like you're going to puke all over that nice suit of yours." He gestures to the twitchy blonde, who grins sheepishly. "Calm down, Jim. You're not going to explode if you sit still." Calloused hands nimbly tend to the unfinished knot in the tie, smoothing out the curls in the suit with slow movements that rested his hands on the top of the suit near the shoulders.

"Aww, c'mon Bones, you worry too much." His voice broke, regardless of the reassurance he was trying to say, and Leonard just scowled, releasing the wild animal before it bucked and ran off.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the invincible Jim Kirk my ass. I've heard this shtick for four years now, and you think I couldn't figure you out _right now?_" _I know you better than that, Jim. _"Just quit pacing around like a cat and go out there. The ceremony starts in five minutes, and I'll be damned if you're late to your own wedding." _Just go on, Jim. _

There was a flash on anxiety, as fleeting as the smile that followed it as his best friend turned heel and walked out of the door, pausing for a moment to lean on the frame. "Thanks Bones."

_Good luck, Jim._

**XXX**

And of course, during the party, he sat next to the same pissed off Vulcan brat he'd met in the elevator, smug grin and all. Jim sat to his left, though, and if the powers of Kirk buffer didn't work, nothing would. Speaking of Kirks, a completely sated James Kirk and Spock sat at the longest edge of the table, with Jim laughing and gesturing wildly into a story that, knowing him, was half rubbish, and Spock nearly grinning to his side with the usual snide input.

Leonard smiled slightly into his purple drink, feeling a little more normal and pleased with how things turned out, along with the usual rhythm of crazy conversation from his side of the table. He turned to look at his best friend, whom before a month ago wouldn't even smile until Spock talked to him.

"I guess those two were meant to be, huh?"

And the Vulcan, _god bless him, _glanced over and threw Spock such a fond expression that it made Bones raise an eyebrow, then suddenly caught his eye. "I am sorry for my actions previously. If you are willing, forgive me."

_And if that wasn't the-_

"Okay, sure." The Vulcan mimics his raised eyebrow, but with an amused glimmer in his blue irises instead of intensity.

"My name is Stonn." And it was abrupt and sudden and so awkward that Leonard laughs without thinking, causing a frown to wrinkle the face just like Jim's tux, with tense muscles around the eyes that remind him of Joanna's pouts when she was little and unwilling.

He pauses, teasing the man just a bit before going on. "Hi Stonn, I'm Leonard."

"Yes, I know. Spock told me about you previously, along with his proposal."

"Did he?"

He nods in agreement, smiling for real this time at Spock. "You are right. They look...happy."

"I know. I'm always right."

He huffs, but doesn't look any less pleased. "Loneliness is not good for any species. I am pleased to congratulate my friend's betrothal for this reason. Just as I enjoy your company."

Leonard blushes. He's had enough of flirts and Vulcans for one day.

**XXX**

**Voila! It only took me longer than a year...**

**Sorry for the chasm of lag between updated chapters, because I actually forgot this story existed. And, now that it's finally come to an end, I wonder if it's actually as good as I thought it was. But, I couldn't resist throwing a bitchy Bones in there for kicks, with my love of mother hens and all.**

**I'm glad you guys stuck with me for this far, and keep reading!**


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